Search results for "Tardigrada"

Desiccation risk favours prevalence and diversity of tardigrade communities and influences their trophic structure in alpine ephemeral rock pools

2022

AbstractRock pools are ephemeral freshwater habitats characterized by their small size, well-defined boundaries, and periodic desiccation, making them ideal model systems to answer numerous ecological questions. Although there are numerous studies on rock pool fauna around the world, tardigrades have only rarely been recorded. We conducted the first tardigrade-focused study on rock pools by quantitatively extracting and classifying them from rock pools in the Italian Apennines. Rock pools were divided into three types, based on maximum duration of their inundation period. Following the patterns usually observed with rock pool invertebrates, we tested the hypothesis that desiccation has a ne…

A lift in snail's gut provides an efficient colonization route for tardigrades.

2022

First insights into female sperm storage duration in tardigrades.

2022

Female sperm storage is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom and it has been shown to be linked to several evolutionary processes, from postcopulatory sexual selection to dispersal. Here we report, for the first time, long-term sperm storage in females of the tardigrade Macrobiotus polonicus. Females, isolated after a short contact with a male, were able to use the stored sperm for up to 5 weeks (mean of 2 weeks), which translates to a considerable proportion of female post-mating longevity under controlled laboratory conditions (60% on average). Our study provides the first insights into the duration of sperm storage, an underexplored feature of the reproductive biology of tardigrades. Additio…

Sisubiotus hakaiensis sp. nov. (Tardigrada, Macrobiotidae), a new tardigrade species from Calvert Island (British Columbia, Canada)

2022

Tardigrades reports from British Columbia (Canada) trace back to 1908 and numerous species have been recorded from this region, despite the relatively few published sampling studies. We describe by integrative taxonomy (light microscopy morphology, morphometrics, and DNA sequencing) a new tardigrade species, Sisubiotus hakaiensis sp. nov. from the British Columbia central coast. The new species has been found in moss collected from a vertical rock outcrop near the Hakai Institute Calvert Island Field Station. Sisubiotus hakaiensis sp. nov. differs from all the other known species in the genus by the presence of a labyrinthine layer inside the egg process walls, whereas no consistent differe…